A small brown dog and a pale-skinned little girl wearing a white dress sit in matching celestial-blue armchairs in this horizontal painting. To our right, the girl sits with her legs angled to our left. She slumps back with her legs spread, and her left elbow, on our right, is bent so that hand rests behind her head. Her other elbow is draped over the armrest. Her dark brown hair appears to be pulled back, and tawny brown eyes under faint brows gaze down and to our left. She has a small nose set in a round face and a coral-pink mouth closed in a straight line. Her white dress has touches of gray, soft pink, and powder blue with a wide plaid sash around her waist. The pine-green, black, and sapphire-blue sash is accented with overlapping vertical and horizontal lines of burnt orange, light blue, and mustard yellow. Her socks match her sash and come up to mid-calf, over black shoes with silver buckles. The small dog has scruffy black fur and a russet-brown face. It lies curled in the chair opposite the girl, to our left, with its eyes closed and ears pricked up. The rounded backs of the upholstered chairs curve down to become the low arms. The vivid and light blue fabric of the chairs is scattered with loosely painted strokes of avocado and forest green, peach pink, cherry red, plum purple, and white. Beyond the chairs closest to us is another armchair and an armless loveseat, both covered with the same fabric. They sit at the back of the room, in a corner flooded with silvery light coming through four windows on the right side. The furniture is arranged on a peanut-brown floor. The artist signed in the lower left, “Mary Cassatt.”

Little Girl in a Blue Armchair

Mary Cassatt

A small brown dog and a pale-skinned little girl wearing a white dress sit in matching celestial-blue armchairs in this horizontal painting. To our right, the girl sits with her legs angled to our left. She slumps back with her legs spread, and her left elbow, on our right, is bent so that hand rests behind her head. Her other elbow is draped over the armrest. Her dark brown hair appears to be pulled back, and tawny brown eyes under faint brows gaze down and to our left. She has a small nose set in a round face and a coral-pink mouth closed in a straight line. Her white dress has touches of gray, soft pink, and powder blue with a wide plaid sash around her waist. The pine-green, black, and sapphire-blue sash is accented with overlapping vertical and horizontal lines of burnt orange, light blue, and mustard yellow. Her socks match her sash and come up to mid-calf, over black shoes with silver buckles. The small dog has scruffy black fur and a russet-brown face. It lies curled in the chair opposite the girl, to our left, with its eyes closed and ears pricked up. The rounded backs of the upholstered chairs curve down to become the low arms. The vivid and light blue fabric of the chairs is scattered with loosely painted strokes of avocado and forest green, peach pink, cherry red, plum purple, and white. Beyond the chairs closest to us is another armchair and an armless loveseat, both covered with the same fabric. They sit at the back of the room, in a corner flooded with silvery light coming through four windows on the right side. The furniture is arranged on a peanut-brown floor. The artist signed in the lower left, “Mary Cassatt.”

Colors in this work

Details
Artist
Mary Cassatt
Date
1878
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
overall: 89.5 × 129.8 cm (35 1/4 × 51 1/8 in.) framed: 109.22 × 152.72 × 6.35 cm (43 × 60 1/8 × 2 1/2 in.)
Department
CF
Holding institution
National Gallery of Art
Palette

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Image provider
national-gallery-of-art
License
CC0-1.0
Credit
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Art Genome Taxonomy

10 tags

Subject Matter

  • Childhood Both · 99%

    The title identifies a little girl, who is visibly the dominant human subject of the composition.

  • Animals Both · 100%

    A small dog is clearly visible curled in the lower-left chair, and the catalog description explicitly identifies it as a small brown dog.

  • Interiors Both · 99%

    The painting shows a furnished room with upholstered seating and windows; the catalog likewise describes the interior arrangement.

Styles and Movements

  • Impressionism Visual · 87%

    The loose broken brushwork, high-key color contrasts, and attention to reflected or changing light are consistent with Impressionist painting.

Visual Qualities

  • Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 98%

    The composition is dominated by saturated turquoise and blue, contrasted with white, pink, red, green, purple, yellow, and brown accents.

  • Patterns Visual · 84%

    The girl's sash is visibly plaid, and repeated multicolored marks create patterned surfaces across the upholstery.

Medium and Techniques

  • Oil Painting Metadata · 100%

    The National Gallery of Art catalog identifies the medium as oil on canvas.

  • Gestural Visual · 94%

    Visible short, broken strokes of varied direction animate the upholstery, clothing, floor, and surrounding forms.

Time Periods

  • 19th Century Art Metadata · 100%

    The work is dated 1878, placing it within nineteenth-century art.

Furniture and Lighting

  • Armchair Both · 100%

    Multiple upholstered armchairs are prominent objects in the scene, including the blue chair occupied by the girl and the chair occupied by the dog.

Source & rights

Mary Cassatt. Little Girl in a Blue Armchair. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.

High-resolution sources

Catalog record ↗ Image source ↗ Image license ↗ Image-use terms ↗ Catalog metadata terms ↗

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